Gatsby’s a great read, old sport!

All week we have had monsoons in Cannes so that the sea off the Croisette looked more black than blue. There has been more time to appreciate that The Great Gatsby press conference was remarkably literary.

The Master’s eye: Director of The Great Gatsby, Baz Luhrmann

Whatever people’s opinions on the adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s creation, the film will undoubtedly encourage many across the world either to reread the novel, set in 1920s America, or take it up for the first time.

The Australian director Baz Luhrmann had read the novel in his youth and seen an earlier screen version in 1974. In 2004, he chanced across the novel again.

He was on the trans-Siberian railway and listened with rapt attention to a seven-hour audio version of the novel. At the end of it, he determined there was a new film to be made.

Luhrmann’s screenplay co-writer, Craig Pearce, said he had read the novel at 15.

“In the US, The Great Gatsby is essential reading — everyone has read it,” observed Pearce.

When friends and acquaintances discovered Pearce was working on The Great Gatsby, they would say: “My goodness, that is my favourite book and I read it every year and every year I get something different from the book because I am a different person and Gatsby speaks to me in a different way.”

In his opinion, “This slim volume has that magic.”

“We discovered that it has a resonance today that was so strong in terms of what it was saying about the financial climate, this thing we have just gone through — and incredibly Fitzgerald predicted this crash at the end of the book symbolic of a greater crash that had not yet happened but was about to happen.”

“This novel is still discussed 90 years later — people are still talking about trying to dissect each one of his lines... that gave us more insight,” he commented.

Meanwhile, Luhrmann recalls Leonardo DiCaprio’s reaction after he read the book for the first time with a view to playing the lead, Jay Gatsby: “The thing about that man’s writing is that he takes what everyone is thinking and puts into words.”

Cannes Classic: Madhabi Mukherjee in Charulata

Midnight shot

At the India pavilion, a little sequence from Charulata has been playing again and again on auto repeat. The film was due for screening yesterday as part of Cannes Classics.

Among the 25 other films included in this category are The Last Emperor, Cleopatra and Hiroshima Mon Amour.

The last film in the series, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, will be introduced by its star, Kim Novak.

Similarly, the right person to introduce Charulata would have been its female lead, Madhabi Mukherjee, who lives in Calcutta but is too frail apparently to risk the journey to Cannes.

I learn more about Madhabi from Durba Sahay (Durba Bannerjee before marriage to her husband who is from Bihar) who persuaded the actress to play the main part in her movie, The Unknown Guest, which was shown in the short films corner in Cannes last year.

For the third successive year, Durba has an entry this year, with a short film called The Mechanic.

The Unknown Guest told of an elderly woman who would check obituary notices in newspapers and attend shradh ceremonies as a way of feeding herself, as well as obtaining food for another woman who was bedridden.

Durba had always wanted Madhabi for one of her movies: “From the time I saw Charulata I have liked her acting. She was very professional. When it came to giving a shot, she would do it — even at midnight.”

Coming of age

French season: A scene from Jeune & Jolie

Jeune & Jolie (Young & Beautiful), a film in the main competition, made by a well-known director, Francois Ozon, is described as “a coming of age portrait of a 17-year-old over four seasons and four songs”.

Isabelle (played by Marine Vacth) comes from a good home but decides to experiment with her sexuality by becoming a prostitute. Her parents discover their daughter’s double life when the police become involved after one of Isabelle’s clients, an elderly man, dies in a hotel room during sex.

Bizarrely, the dead man’s widow (Charlotte Rampling) and Isabelle meet in the hotel room and find closure.

This is, if you haven’t guessed, a French movie.

Past perfect

Hard talk: Derek Malcolm

Just how much really is there to celebrate in the 100th year of Indian cinema?

This is the question I put to veteran film critic Derek Malcolm who pushed the cause of Satyajit Ray in the early days.

“Oh, yes, you have a lot to celebrate but most of it is in the past rather than in the present — that’s the problem,” said Derek, when I caught up with him at the India party.

“Maybe in the future we will have more to celebrate,” continued Derek. “At the moment it is very doubtful to see India in the forefront of world cinema but if people studied the past of India they would find some really great films they have never heard of, never seen.”

As an example of a talented director, he picks out Anant Gandhi who made Ship of Theseus. “It is a first film, very mature, very well made. I would say if that man hasn’t got a future, there is no hope at all.”

He pinpoints the main problem as distribution. “I think there is a lot of talent about but there is a lack of distribution of that talent. It’s terrible.”

Derek cherishes his special relationship with Ray. “When he died people were beginning to neglect him. But now he is coming back.”

Derek remembers: “I had seen all his films. Sometimes I had not been nice to them but he sent me one of his books and on it he put, ‘To Derek Malcolm who sometimes likes my films’. The terrible thing about the UK is that there hasn’t been a commercially released Indian film for 15 years except Bollywood. And that’s a terrible shame which we are trying to correct — not very successfully.”

Modi’s moves

Narendra Modi may or may not be a lover of cinema but he is certainly pushing Gujarat as a location for Western productions. And behind Modi is none other than Amitabh Bachchan.

I have this from Kirti Thakar, manager (film cell), Tourism Corporation of Gujarat, who has a presence in the Cannes Market: “Amitabh Bachchan gave an idea to our chief minister ‘that people are going to UP and other states for shooting. Why don’t you give facilities to film producers so that location and tourism can both be promoted on one platform through the film media?’ ”

Thakar highlights Bachchan’s commitment to Gujarat: “Bachchan is brand ambassador for Gujarat tourism.”

Tikka man: Abdul Rashid

Tittle tattle

At the Cannes Market-NFDC party last Thursday, the food for 1,000 guests was cooked by chefs Abdul Rashid and Arvind Rai from the Ashok Hotel in Delhi.

“We started cooking at 10am — by 3.30pm the job was done,” revealed Rashid. “We made chicken tikka, fish tikka, mutton biryani, tandoori chicken and dal makhni.”

Indian films have failed to get into the main competition at Cannes for many years but for Indian food there is always strong competition.